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<p>Agree. And this attitude gets even worse when the default safety (after getting shut out) of starting at a community college is mentioned. It seems that “gap year” is the standard response on these forums, but is that a realistic option for most to do the kind of gap year people tend to think about here (i.e. something other than employment or military service (obviously more than a year for the latter))?</p>
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They don’t have to love it. They just need to be willing to attend if all else fail.</p>
<p>I understand what you’re saying, Joblue–but there’s a difference between wanting to attend a school where everyone is exactly like one, and wanting to attend a school where one’s values and interests are taken seriously. When I was in high school, probably half the class who attended college went to Penn State, in its various forms. I’m sure they got a good education, and I’m sure I would have, too, but I had the amazing luck to go to Smith. I still remember the astonishment I felt at going to a class for which everyone had prepared, wanted to discuss the material, and enjoyed the discussion. Never, not once, in my high school, had I felt that level of engagement. Yes, maybe a few of us–but not everyone. It’s intoxicating. No, that is not what Life is like–but who ever said that college was supposed to be like life? For me, college was liberating, challenging, exciting, difficult. People cared about the arcane stuff I cared about. That’s not going to be true later in life, in the “real world,” but for a few short years, I got to indulge in the life of the mind. That’s what I want for my kids. It’s not for everyone, not in the sense of “not everyone deserves it,” but in the sense of “not everyone wants it.” But if you want it, it seems to me, you ought to be able to try to achieve it, without being seen as hothouse plants who want special treatment. </p>
<p>Oh, give me a break! The child with a 2200 SAT has no true safety? Some people and their 2200 kids are snobs of the worst kind. </p>
<p>I also have a 2250 kid, and many of his hs friends were in that range, and our state flagship was a terrific safety for them. At that level (with matching GPA’s) those kids qualify for the honors programs at the state flagship. Not a single kid who went that route has been permanently damaged by having to rub elbows in the dorms and cafeterias with “lesser” kids (those who “only” had 1800 SAT’s and are just “regular” admits.)</p>
<p>A suprising number of kids who are total snobs about their future colleges as high school sophomores and juniors find themselves at our flagship for one reason or another a few years later.</p>
<p>@cptofthehouse I definitely think there are a LOT of clueless parents out there like your “son’s teammate’s mom” who expect financial aid – and it just ain’t comin’. Much disappointment for these people is coming in the next 6 weeks. It will be a wake-up call that came too late, and these kids might be “shut out.”</p>
<p>I think this is a realistic, eye-opening thread.</p>
<p>I agree that the OP’s scenario could definitely happen in the case of a musical theatre/acting major. In fact, those may be among the most likely for this scenario. The kids are admitted, but not to the program of their choices, so they do not attend those schools. According to one poster in this thread, that renders them non-admits (my kid currently has one of those in her pile, as a matter of fact).</p>
<p>We cast an extremely wide net this year applying for schools because we have a low EFC and we had to for financial aid purposes. I was scared of all these scenarios, and while my daughter is a high achiever, she is not a wunderkind like many listed here (3.5 UW/highly-ranked HS; ACT 27. great theatre-specific resume/leadership; stellar recs). She applied to 15 schools total (don’t flame me, again, we had a method to the madness), has been admitted to 10 and is still awaiting word from 5 near April 1st. Two were true safeties, two were high matches, two were big reaches and the rest were matches. The hardest admits are the 5 we have not yet heard from. I did my due diligence in helping my daughter create this list. She went through and educated herself as best she could and we have visited several schools on the list. However, even with 10 acceptances in hand, we will have to scrutinize each offer so carefully to see which offers the best fit, the biggest bang for our <meager> bucks, and which we can truly afford.</meager></p>
<p>I also agree with a poster above that what seems rarely to be discussed on CC is that schools most likely to make cost of attendance affordable are much more exclusive and harder to get into. To be honest, if any of the remaining five schools offer her admission, she will likely accept because based on CDS and info obtained from CC, our out-of-pocket will be significantly lower (Princeton, Northwestern, Davidson, Denison and Kenyon). Denison and Kenyon (high reaches) have experienced huge increases in applications this year, which makes them both unlikely, and the other three are ridiculously reachy anyway.</p>
<p>All this to say, I don’t think you can take a thing for granted. I think you have to weigh every single angle you can, and front-load.<----- this has been our mantra. Plan as much as you can and demystify and read data sets and educate yourself…then cast as wide a net as you can afford in app fees, SAT/ACT sitting fees, visits, etc. Right now, it seems to be paying off with acceptances, and so far (extremely early in the process), there seems to be room for some negotiation (and I am careful to avoid this word).</p>
<p>I do think it’s possible to be shut out, though, if there is a perfect <awful> storm of misinformation, faith, poor guidance, etc. There are just a ton of variables and nothing is the way it once was …</awful></p>
<p>Thank you, I guess I’m a snob of the worst kind. Good to know. My state, by the way, does not have a “flagship” that is a terrific safety-- we don’t have a flagship, at all. The honors program is at a separate school, with a selective acceptance rate, which makes it not a safety. But you don’t want to hear that, do you? You want to make broad statements about other people that make you feel better. You want to extrapolate from your own experience, and in the process determine that no other experience is valid. You can want the best possible choice for your kid, but other people expressing that desire are snobs and their children spoiled brats. You want to pretend that an honest desire to find a safety that is going to be a good choice for a child, is really a statement of privilege and inability to deal with the hoi polloi. </p>
<p>I never said that a kid with a 2200 had no safety. I said it was hard to find a safety that a kid with high stats would love, if he was hoping for a liberal arts college that would challenge him. I stand by that statement. </p>
<p>Think it is worth noting that there is a wide discrepancy among state schools. On the high end you have schools like UNC, UVA, Univ. of Michigan, William and Mary, University of Wisconsin and the whole CA system. Not going to name those on the low end as I don’t believe in bashing, but count my state flagship among them. I don’t think anyone would have a problem attending one of the schools in the first group, but if you are a high achiever and you have a questionable state flagship then you are going to be looking elsewhere. Don’t think it has anything to do with academic snobbery. The resources in some state schools are off the charts, in others not so much. I can’t fault any student, no matter what their stats, for aspiring to the best possible environment. Especially when you factor in the cost of a college education.</p>
<p>I cringe when I read that someone was shut out because he only wanted an Ivy and no Ivy wanted him. If only an Ivy would do, it can only be for the name. The Ivies are different enough from each other that it seems strange that any of them would be perfect for this young man, but that no other schools would work AT ALL. Is Dartmouth that similar to Harvard as to be interchangeable, but not close enough to Williams or Hopkins or Duke to even apply?</p>
<p>On this forum, it is common to focus on shut outs based on prestige, such as a student who is only applying to willing to apply to prestigious private colleges, like ivies. However, I expect this is extremely rare, and the more common occurrences are the ones that occurred in the HS data that UCBAlumnus posted earlier. None of the students from that HS who were shut out even applied to any ivy-type, highly selective private universities. Instead they applied to public colleges or unique music/art/military/foreign colleges. Most of the shut outs related to either a very weak applicant who is likely to get rejected at traditional safeties or a student who applied to only one college, often a B student who only applied to UCLA or a student interested in a unique college for which it is difficult to find nearby substitutes (military, conservatory school, etc.). </p>
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<p>I do hear you marysidney, and I absolutely respect your experience. It’s just that in the current, ubercompetitive environment, so many kids are being set up for misery by thinking that they can only have that experience in a highly ranked LAC, when in fact there just isn’t room for all the high flying students who apply to them.</p>
<p>Do you really think that it’s impossible to have that same liberating, challenging experience at Penn State? Even if there are many high school classmates who attend the state school, the experience is very unlikely to be the same as it was in high school, particularly in such a very large flagship. It’s likely that there are super smart kids there right now who are having a thrilling academic experience and meeting new people who also care about the arcane stuff no one at their high school took seriously, especially in the honors program.</p>
<p>I also understand that not every state has a super high caliber state university but most states do have some schools which fall into the top 200 or so universities in the country and which can provide an excellent education to the highly motivated student even if they aren’t surrounded by their peers. I just think it’s kinder to disabuse high school kids of the notion that they can only achieve a good education “worthy” of their talents at a relatively small handful of schools. It really isn’t true and even if it were, they aren’t all going to get into those schools so what exactly is achieved by allowing them to feel that those who go elsewhere are somehow “losers”?</p>
<p>I understand what MarySidney is saying - I suspect she’s from the same no flagship state. I don’t have access to our high school’s scattergrams anymore, but I suspect that SUNY Geneseo for the 2200 kid with the grades to match is close to safe. If you have a science oriented kid there are lots of good choices in tech schools - places like Rose-Hulman, RPI and WPI. They won’t give you the M-F ratio of MIT, or the tippy top computer progam, but I don’t think any top student will be bored at those schools. A little harder is the humanities/social science kid. Guys may find enough of a boost at some of the former women’s colleges to put them in the safety column. Some school are particularly strong in a few majors - so for example any kid interested in politics or international relations should seriously consider American as a safety. (I know they consider demonstrated interest, and I know their admissions percentage is under 50%, I still think they are safe enough for most top kids who pay any attention to the application.)</p>
<p>" I think a lot of these kids have contempt for these options because they are seeing high school classmates whom they consider to be academically 'inferior" being admitted and being happy to attend. I have personally found this to be very unattractive on the part of these kids but you really can’t blame them; the adults around them encourage them to feel that because their grades and test scores are so high, that somehow they are superior to the more average students and can’t have a worthwhile academic experience in college unless they can be surrounded by “their people” (sorry, I hate this trope)."</p>
<p>What they are seeing is the same kids who “didn’t get it” in their high school classes even after the teacher explained it again, who had nothing to contribute in class discussions, who copied their homework off the internet, who freeloaded the good grades on group projects while doing none of the work, etc. getting in, and they already know they aren’t going to learn anything from interacting with those kids. It has nothing to do with adults telling them things. These kids have been frustrated for years–they haven’t had worthwhile academic experiences in classes with these students and they are looking for a school with like-minded students who care about learning, not just football and drinking.</p>
<p>The student’s major can also matter. If the student’s major happens to be a “hard” major at the school, the cohort may differ… Exactly. My state flaship would have been awful in D1’s major (the one prof was retiring.) but it excels in 3 other programs. At many flagships, the stem brainiac isn’t going to be frustrated because his/her classes are full of kids in easy majors- except maybe in some gen eds or electives, depending. You need to think about majors, not just the seeming rep of the school.</p>
<p>When we say competition for tippy tops is fierce, it’s not as simple as looking at acceptance rates. In fact, such a chunk of the applicants are so strong, that, unlike in a high school, they can be virtually indistinguishable. Consider that. It doesn’t make it a crapshoot, per se. It means your one or two great scores, the number of APs or a few hours of service aren’t enough to hang chances on. Depending on the potential major your most important score can be the one(s) most relevant to that- not always the grand total SAT or ACT composite.</p>
<p>Btw, back in the day, we used to say American U had so many applicants for Poli Sci or Intl Rel that it couldn’t be a safety in those. I’d be surprised if that has changed.</p>
<p>In our experience, American had the worst financial aid package of all the schools which accepted Barnardgirl. She would have loved to go there. She received that acceptance before the Barnard one and when I looked at the financial aid compared to the University of Michigan, there was NO way. </p>
<p>The kids I know who were shut out were shut out because of affordability, not lack of acceptances. I think there is a certain income level that makes it close to impossible to afford anywhere. The EFC around $15-18K is a very tough income point. It means you are full pay at any state school and privates cost the same amount after aid. One of Barnardgirl’s friends only applied to a couple schools- Michigan and Michigan State. She was deferred and then rejected from Michigan. She got into Michigan State. The financial aid package was abysmal and there was no way they could afford it. She applied, on the late side- late March or early April I think- to Eastern Michigan. They welcomed her with opened arms and gave her some merit aid that made it affordable (3.6 GPA, 24 ACT- rough tester). When she went to orientation they put her in the honors orientation. She asked about it and they said she needed to fill out an application but she could be in honors if she wanted to. She’s one of those kids who wasn’t the brightest, but she worked incredibly hard to get her grades. She had some panicked days when she realized she couldn’t afford MSU. </p>
<p>In an area with no public transportation, I’m not convinced community college is even affordable for some people. And you still have to find a way to finance those last two years. </p>
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<p>New York with its four somewhat-flagship SUNY University Centers? If so, the state does have some respectable state schools, although some majors are better than others at any given campus (e.g. Stony Brook has a good reputation in math, physics, CS, and engineering, but economics appears less strong).</p>
<p>Hmmm, why do Geneseo, Stony Brook, and Binghamton consider “level of applicant’s interest”? It seems unusual to have to play the “interest” game at state schools…</p>
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<p>But would this California school necessarily be representative of others in the US? I would not be surprised if lots of California students shotgunned applications to several UCs and/or CSUs of varying levels of selectivity (and the process of applying to additional campuses in each system means that there is no more effort and only the additional application fees), under that assumption that the less selective ones would be safeties for them (and the implied assumption that state schools are at least acceptable for them). But, given the disdain for state schools that seems to be common in some other states as expressed by students and parents on these forums, would students elsewhere have the same “safety” strategy?</p>
<p>My school, with an 80% acceptance rate, considers interest. An acquaintance of mine is an ad com at this school. The person stated that they don’t want a marginal applicant writing about how much he or she wants to go to the University of Texas or Oklahoma State University in the essay. Trying to say that a school which just considers demonstrated interest can’t be a safety is about as ridiculous as saying that a school which “considers” work experience can’t be a safety for a student who’s never flipped burgers.</p>
<p>The question that is first asked on all the search engines is “What size school do you want?” Students are encouraged to think of the best fit for them, to imagine themselves at different schools, to search out the match in temperament, in activities, in school philosophy. Then they’re told they must have a safety–and safety is defined, in so many words, as a school with a greater than 50% acceptance rate (I’ve heard 75%). And, it is intoned piously, they must “love their safety.” All I’m saying is that for some kids, that’s a tough needle to thread, and it is no wonder if, shut out of their reaches and matches, they are not happy about their safety. </p>
<p>I’m not claiming, and I wish people would not be so quick to project their feelings, that a kid who was hoping for a completely different experience can’t find happiness in a place he didn’t expect, nor that such a kid thinks himself “too good” for a state school, nor that a state school can’t be a great place to get an education. My oldest is at one now, by the way. But this whole site is predicated on an understanding that finding and getting into the right place for each student is worth worrying over and thinking about and preparing for. I don’t blame kids for being disappointed if the process doesn’t work as they hoped, and scolding them (and their parents!) for not being happy with a school that doesn’t suit them isn’t very helpful. </p>
<p>I don’t think American requires you to name a major - my son applied everywhere undecided. He was definitely considering IR, but it wasn’t a sure thing. He’d done nothing particularly IRish in high school, except take all the AP History the school offered. The Model UN kids were a drinking crowd that he didn’t want to be involved with. We didn’t ask for financial aid, but we got a half tuition merit aid offer which made it an attractive alternative for us. Obviously, if finances are an issue, you may have other considerations for what can be a safety, but for good students safeties also will offer merit aid, which takes out the sting a bit. :)</p>